Cleft sentence
"Cleft sentence" in a Sentence (4 examples)
Quirk et al (1972) say about the cleft sentence that it is "...so called because it divides a single clause into two separate sections, each with its own verb".
Following Bolinger (1972, 1977) and Gundel (1977), I assume that the introductory it of cleft sentences is referential[…].
Similar analyses of cleft sentences have been repeated in the linguistic literature ever since.
With the exception of the type Er war es, der mich davon abhielt, i.e. with the subject of the sentence in the cleft to emphasise it (see 3.6.2c), cleft sentence constructions rarely sound natural in German and are best avoided.